


Tz’ror

by athoroughlybakedpotato (acommontater)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Jewish Character, historically compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 07:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14806925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/athoroughlybakedpotato
Summary: Yakov changes much slower than the times do, but steadiness is not always a bad thing.





	Tz’ror

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a 'oh man Yakov sure lived through some WildTM history both general and skating wise wonder how that might influence his character' and then kinda went from there. Anything that might need a trigger warning in only mentioned briefly or in passing, but if you want details just in case see the end notes.

Yakov grows up as a young boy and he learns to keep secrets.

His father and mother teach him to keep their religion secret- their hushed prayers and bright candles and happy Shabbat dinners (sometimes, during the good times, they had apples and the smell of them cooking would fill their tiny house along with the sound of his mother laughing.).

He takes them and hides them like the Hebrew under his tongue.

 

/

 

He skates and is discovered to be good at it.

They tell him to make his motherland proud and not to speak about the medicines that they give him. He swallows their pills and doesn't flinch at the needles.

Pills and Hebrew hidden under his tongue, both bitter.

 

/ 

 

He likes teaching the littler kids how to skate. Vows that if he had skaters of his own to coach one day he will never make them take poison disguised as medicine or keep secrets that weigh down the soul. 

 

/ 

 

As he gets older he thinks the secrets that some of the other men keep are more dangerous than his.

He catches two of the others kissing when he gets back to the apartment earlier than usual. They all stare at each other for a moment. 

Yakov is good at keeping secrets. He just nods at them and continues to the bathroom to shower off the dried sweat from the day. 

Hebrew and bitter pills and secret kisses.

 

/ 

 

Lilia is as sharp and cold as the ice fairies she portrays on stage. She and Yakov go to art displays and the theater and spend the dinners afterwards critiquing and improving and discussing what they had seen over bottles of cheap wine and cheaper food. They find a small spot of comfort with each other and decide that it is better than nothing. 

 

/

 

He is old now and retired, coaching. He's good at making skaters better. They are young and happy and Yakov enjoys seeing them grow and learn their art. There’s a young Italian ice dancing team that's making waves due to their rivalry with a team from Canada and he shakes his head at the length of the young man’s hair. His rink is thriving with his skating school now that he’s had a couple of decades to get it set. 

His skaters do not take poison. They rely on talent and music in their blood and nothing else. Yakov will tears the limbs off of the first government official he sees trying to convince them of it. 

 

/ 

 

Dimitri is talented, one of the second generation of skaters trained by Yakov. (He’s barely past forty, but feels like he has lived many lifetimes already.) 

Young, barely nineteen and ready to take on the world, charming and easily winning over audiences. He is just as free with his charms off the ice as he is on it. Yakov feels like he spends more time getting him to stop flirting than he does actually training. Dimitri is talented and the only thing that surpasses his talent is his dedication to the ice. For all his light-hearted flirting, nothing much comes of it and he works harder than anyone else for what he earns. So when Dimitri misses practice two days in a row, Yakov is concerned. 

He tracks him down, pounds on the door until it nearly cracks under his fist. He nearly falls over when it’s opened by Dimitri’s roommate. Dimitri is in bed, a hacking wheezing cough stealing his breath. He smiles and waves off Yakov’s concerns. Pneumonia, he says, he’ll be back in a week once the medicine gives him relief from the coughing. His roommate has a more serious expression and Yakov doesn’t blink at the tender hand he sets on Dimitri’s shoulder. 

Hebrew and bitter pills and hidden love, like stones on his tongue, on his soul.

 

/ 

 

Dimitri is dead by the end of the month. At the funeral Yakov claps a hand on the shoulder of Dimitri’s old roommate and does not let himself cry until he gets home. Lilia makes them tea and sits across the room staring out the window at the falling snow. 

She has friends who dance in New York City, he knows, and she hears whispers of the goings on across the ocean. 

 

/ 

 

He attends the funeral of another one of his skaters, his face as carefully blank as the cause of death papers are. 

He hears whispers, knows that he is not the only coach losing brilliant young men to an illness that kills the souls before the body. Is sometimes one of only a handful of people to attend a funeral for one of his students. Watches a few years later as a young American skates a routine that almost brings tears to his eyes. 

Yakov is good at keeping secrets. 

When he goes to the graveyards he puts smooth pebbles in his pockets to set on the headstones. He runs out of stones before he reaches the last of them and ducks his head low, fist clenched as he forces himself to breath deep. Hebrew and bitter pills and hidden kisses that are somehow now a precursor to death. 

 

/ 

 

Lilia decides that what they have is not enough for either of them anymore and she leaves with an almost-gentle kiss to his slowly expanding forehead. Gentle or soft have never been words to describe Lilia, but he would like to think that she almost was sometimes, with him. 

(She never stops picking up his calls, even if she hangs up on him more often than not. They were friends before anything else.)

 

/ 

 

Viktor is younger than most skaters he teaches, his blue eyes bright as he looks up at Yakov's craggy face.

He demonstrates what he can do on the ice and Yakov thinks. This one could be something. He's seen a lot of boys who could be something. Many of them are in graves that their families had refused to touch. 

He agrees to coaching Viktor and when the little boy gets off the ice he flings himself into a full body hug that startles Yakov. Viktor grins up at him and babbles a mile a minute about what had like to do in the future- what his favorite colors are, skaters that he likes, the year of the first Olympics he’ll be eligible for, music that he likes.... Yakov can feel the headache building already. 

 

/ 

 

Viktor is young and talented and driven. He is charming and sweet and gentle and Yakov is scared to death for him. 

He is harsher on Viktor because he knows that if he is not then it will not come from someone who cares for Viktor. Viktor greets him with smiles and hugs him impulsively anyway.

(He politely doesn’t comment when Viktor’s parents stop showing up to competitions and has Viktor over for dinner on Friday nights with some of his older skaters. He always has apples in one of his dishes.)

Something in the way Viktor skates, in his focus, reminds Yakov of Dimitri from years and years ago.

When he is seventeen Viktor skates a routine from the ending of Swan Lake, a dying swan in the last few minutes of her life, achingly sad. Yakov cannot help but think of what could have been. If some of the funerals he had attended had never happened, how much more there would be out there for Viktor to look up to. His bones feel the weight of time and the secrets he has kept.

 

/

 

Viktor is twelve and quiet and moody all day at practice. Yakov grouches at him but relents when he sees how miserable Viktor truly is. After lunch break he pulls Viktor aside, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“I’m thirteen tomorrow.” Viktor says quietly. “A man. But…” He stops talking and looks away.

Yakov is good at teaching people how to be better at what they do, but he never learned how to be gentle.

“Come for dinner tomorrow.” He says gruffly. “I have my mother’s recipe for kugel and becoming a young man is a good a reason as any for letting your nutrition plan slide for a meal.”

Viktor snaps his head up to stare at him with wide eyes. Yakov points at him.

“Two clean run throughs of your free program before the end of practice, now shoo.”

Viktor smiles brilliantly at him and speeds out to his starting position. Yakov sighs and resists the urge to shake his head.

(He has Lilia and Viktor over for dinner the next night and Viktor nearly glows when Yakov lets him read the prayers before dinner. He actually does cheer when Yakov brings out the dish of warm cinnamon-apple kugel, thick and sweet, with a warmth that sticks to one’s ribs in the dead of winter.)

 

/

 

(When Viktor-not-yet-Vitya-not-yet-Viktor-Nikiforov is fourteen, he falls asleep slumped against Yakov’s arm on the plane ride back to St. Petersburg. There are still dried tear tracks on his cheeks from the airport when they’d been accosted by reporters. Yakov has been used to it since he was young, knows how to brush past the media with barely a second thought. But Viktor is still a child and the sudden groups of loud reporters crowding them and shoving microphones and cameras in their faces until they’d nearly knocked Viktor over had terrified him.

As soon as Yakov had managed to bull through the vultures and through security, Viktor had burst into tears. Yakov had sighed and patted him on the back, making a note to himself to get Viktor better media training when they got back. He falls asleep on Yakov’s arm on the plane and Yakov reminds himself that he is not the boy’s father or any family.

(Ignores the small voice that points out that Viktor has no father and just as few family.)

 

/

 

Viktor is fifteen and falls in love easily, but infrequently.

Yakov is glad about this because he doesn’t think he could handle it if Viktor was as emotionally tumultuous as Georgi. One of them being in the throes of teenage angst at a time is about all Yakov’s blood pressure can handle at a time.

Both of them medal at Junior Nationals that year and Yakov is incredibly proud. He hugs Viktor back when he flings himself excitedly into Yakov’s arms, pats Georgi solidly on the back, and give them both the next day off.

 

/

 

Vitya is sixteen and the source of why Yakov’s hairline continues to recede from the number of times he rubs his forehead.

Vitya is kind and gentle, but he is still sixteen and stubborn as a mule when he is convicted. They argue for weeks over his short program. Vitya finally agrees to use the music and program that Yakov has picked for him as long as he gets total control over his costume and can tweak choreography as the season progresses. Yakov throws his hands in the air and allows it.

(Grits his teeth as Vitya wins gold after gold that season, and sets a new world record at the Junior Worlds. Vitya just smiles, smugly triumphant, at him.)

((He spends more time defending the petulant child from the national skating federation than he will ever know. Artists will express themselves no matter what, Lilia and his own career taught him as much, so as long as he can curtail Viktor’s wilder ideas he will be happy. He will take a skater who pushes the envelope and stays alive over one who will go too far and end up dead.))

 

/

 

He gets more students, younger novice skaters that he’d been watching climb the ranks. Some only last a year or so, but some stay.

He allows Vitya more power of collaboration with the choreographers, but retains final veto power for when Vitya would try and push himself too far, too fast. Vitya begins to make a name for himself in the senior division- he doesn't win anything his first few years thanks to some awkwardly timed growth spurts, but stubbornly clings to his shifting spot in the top ten.

 

/

 

Vitya is nineteen and has apparently made a friend if his constant texting is any indication. It’s a much a relief as it is an annoyance.

A relief because there’s a new junior skater joining them- Ludmila Babavicha, who is eleven with more energy and just as much drive as the older skaters and infinitely more troublesome. 

 

/

 

Yakov thinks that if he were a different sort of man, a man like his father or his grandfather or his old coach, he might have beaten the silliness out of the boy with the flat of his hand long ago and never heard another word about it.

But he is not those men, and he swore he would never be like those men.

(some days he cannot decide if that makes him better or weaker than them.)

So instead he pinches the bridge of his nose and runs a hand through his thinning hair- something he blames on his skaters as much as he blames Viktor for the building headache he can feel setting in already.

“You want to what?”

Viktor is twenty now, a shining star in the skating world and Yakov watches as he goes through his proposed program again with enthused intensity and hopes that he doesn't burn out.

 

/

 

When Lilia left him she moved in with another woman and they do not talk about it.

Their relationship has not changed much over the years- which was probably part of the problem in their marriage he muses- and after the few months of silence following their chilly yet amicable separation, they'd wondered why they hadn't spoken.

The love is still there, Yakov can read the lines of Lilia’s face almost as well as his own, but it's different now, better. Maybe they met too soon, before. He likes this new relationship up that have of being able to be together and drink wine and curse at their tv shows together with none of the pressures that come with being spouses.

(They don't dance together anymore, and Yakov misses that, but he can accept it. There are some things to intimate to go back too.)

((he thinks of stones and words and carefully hidden secrets tucked away inside of him and knows that Lilia deserves the same.))

 

/

 

He gain more skaters at his rink, spends as much time delegating as he does coaching, and he ensures that his skaters are always set up with sponsors involving iron-clad contracts that tip in their favor.

It takes him a while to notice how brittle Viktor’s smile has become and how infrequently he uses it now. Yakov never learned to be gentle.

When Viktor starts missing their weekly dinners, he goes himself to drag him out of his apartment, even if it means bringing the dog along too. He tries his best, but Viktor is not the only child he has to worry about and the others are younger and need more from him than Vitya does. He is grown now, and Yakov knows if he needs something he’ll ask.

 

/

 

Viktor is nearly twenty-five and skates like a dead man.

He is still beautiful on the ice, untouchable even, a living legend, but the look in his eyes reminds Yakov of the skaters he knew from his youth who didn’t question the pills they were given and then tried to skate on broken bones.

Yuri- the tiny little spitfire Yakov has been coaching through juniors- gives Viktor a determinedly wide berth and acts desperately unimpressed with everything Viktor does before following suit minutes later. Viktor finds the kid interesting, some of the life that he’d been missing sparking back up in his eyes. The steadily increasingly creative insults Yuri hurls at him make Viktor laugh and Yuri’s face go red.

Yakov observes them with bemusement as Viktor shows Yuri how to land a triple axel with consistent, brutal efficiency. Yakov starts mentioning what he’s working on with Yuri when he talks to Viktor. Heaven knows that Yuri will listen to him, but only for so long, and he admires Viktor even if the boy would rather die than ever admit it. Both of them are better for it, Yakov thinks.

Viktor might even make a good coach someday, if he ever gets a hold of his flighty tendencies.

Yakov knows he is old, but maybe by the time he is ready to retire Viktor could be ready to take over. Yakov only wants the best for his skaters, so who better to take over than the best of his students? Maybe, he thinks, watching Viktor and Yuri as they skate around the others on the ice, maybe.

 

/

 

Yakov doesn’t know how to cheer someone up when winning and being on top of world no longer satisfies them- it was all that ever drove him as a competitor. Viktor forces smiles and accepts his gold medals and Yakov doesn’t know how to help him.

(It irritates him, being helpless, so he finds himself grumpier than usual.)

Vitya is twenty-seven and Yakov still goes to bang on his hotel room door to make sure he’s ready for the banquet. They go down with the other skaters and Yakov tries not to hover as they talk with sponsors and other people attending the event. Vitya is distracted, glancing away from his conversation with Mila every few seconds. Yakov doesn’t see anything wildly out of the ordinary when he scans the room and shrugs it off.

He decides he has spent enough time schmoozing with the best of the skating world and leaves with a couple other coaches and choreographers to find a bar with decent alcohol. Yakov doesn’t realize until much later that this means missing one of the most important moments in his dearest student’s life.

 

/

 

Vitya leaves, like the fool in every fairytale, and Yakov sees a glimmer of the petulant fifteen year old who defied him at every turn in his eyes, even against the gentleness of his kiss. Yakov drives him to the airport, because Vitya is a fool- he tells him so the entire way there in-between complaining about the other drivers. He makes sure Vitya gets to his gate and waits grumpily until the flight is announced. Vitya hugs him before he boards. Yakov pats him on the back and tell him not to call unless it’s important or he’s ready to come back.

“I’ll text you when I get to Japan, then. Bye!”

Selfish boy, Yakov thinks tiredly as he watches until the plane is a speck in the sky, don’t you know I was building you a life here?

 

/

 

(It will be much later when Yakov is done being angry with Viktor. He cannot stay angry long in the face of Vitkor himself, but the boy is conveniently thousands of kilometers away which lets Yakov be angry in peace. It will be even longer than that before he meets Yuuri Katsuki and begrudgingly allows that this newly love-struck Vitya is a vast improvement over the shell of a man that had been. Even if he still sighs over Vitya’s antics. Eventually he stands where Vitya’s father might have and watches his student and his fiance take their vows. He doesn’t admit to crying when they gleefully smash their cloth-wrapped glasses together. But he does feel as if the weight of some stones has left his heart as Vitya hugs him on their way out the door towards the reception. He is glad there are some secrets he no longer has to keep.)

**Author's Note:**

> TW: brief mentions of death, the AIDS crisis, homophobia, antisemitism, and depression.


End file.
